The March to Banza Nkulu . 275 
The ridges appeared to trend north and south, 
and to approach the river’s bending bed at different 
angles ; their sides were steep, and in places scarped 
where they fell into the intervening hollows. The 
valleys conducted many a water to the main drain, 
and during the wet season they must be well-nigh 
impassable. At the end of the dries the only green 
is in the hill-folds and the basin-sinks, where the 
trees muster strong enough to defend themselves 
from the destructive annual fires. These bush- 
burnings have effectually disforested the land, and 
in some places building timber and even fuel have 
become scarce. In the Abrus, barely two feet 
high, I could hardly recognize the tall tree of 
Eastern Africa, except by its scarlet “ carats,” which 
here the people disdain to use as beads. The 
scorching of the leaves stunts the shrubs, thickens 
the bark, and makes the growth scrubby, so that 
the labourer has nothing to do but to clear away 
the grass : I afterwards remarked the same effects 
on the Brazilian Campos. 
We descended the dividing ridge, which is also 
painfully steep, especially near the foot, and crossed 
the rolling hollow with its three chalybeate brooks, 
beyond which lay our destination. Tuckey de¬ 
scribes the hills between Bomaand Nkulu as stony 
and barren, which is perhaps a little too strong. 
The dark red clay soil, dried almost to the con¬ 
sistency of laterite, cannot be loosened by rain or 
sun, and in places it is hardened like that of 
